“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Everybody freeze,” bellows a male voice at the doorway.
I spin around to find a quartet in black robes, bursting through the door.
Bloody hell.
For a split second, I think it’s necromancers who have come to avenge the murder of their guild member, but the Magical Council insignias on their chests indicate that they’re enforcers.
The enforcers step into the chamber, only to reveal more colleagues.
Fuck.
The Boogie Man jumps down from the altar and pulls me into his chest. “Who are these men?”
“Can they see you?” I ask.
“No.”
The crowd of enforcers part to let in the librarian who still wears her dressing gown. A confused-looking man stumbles behind her who is naked save for a column of rose quartz over his cock.
“There they are,” the librarian cries. “These are the women who sold me the dildo that turned into a man!”
ChapterForty-Two
ALIENOR
I lean into the Boogie Man’s chest, my heart thundering as enforcers pile into the ritual room. Each of them carries foot-long battle staffs that wield more power than a witch’s wand.
The Boogie Man curls his wings forward, encasing me in a warm cocoon. I wrap my arms around his waist, hoping to share some of his invisibility.
Grandma steps forward, holding her wand aloft. “By what authority does the Magical Council dare trespass into our private sanctum?”
“You are the matriarch of this coven?” asks the only enforcer wearing a red cloak. She’s a tall auburn-haired witch who towers over everyone in the room except the Boogie Man.
Grandma raises her chin. “I am the High Priestess of the oldest and most prestigious coven in Great Britain.”
The enforcer presses a hand on her ear and pauses as though listening to a remote voice. “Reports are coming in from around the magical world of personal massagers transfiguring into gentlemen, some of whom went missing as early as 1302.”
My stomach flip-flops. That’s the exact date our apothecary was established.
“I have no idea what you mean,” Grandma says, her face turning red. “Please leave.”
The librarian rushes up to Grandma, her hands balled into fists. “Disgusting woman. If I knew the dildo contained a man, I would have demanded one that didn’t look like an eighteenth-century tavern drunkard.”
My gaze darts to the man, whose horseshoe mustache takes up most of his face. His manboobs hang over a barrel-shaped belly covered in wiry black hair. From the red capillaries across his nose and cheeks, it looks like he’s still under the influence of booze.
“Please, Madam,” says the chief enforcer. “Let the Magical Council handle the situation.”
“Fuck that.” The librarian yanks at the man’s crystal dildo, making him wince. “I’m not releasing him until I get my refund.”
The enforcer turns to her colleagues. “Drag out every witch for interrogation. If they resist, use deadly force.”
“Alienor,” the Boogie Man murmurs. “I can kill these men.”
“Don’t. They’ll only call for reinforcements.”
One of the enforcers grabs the arm of a young witch, and her mother blasts him in the face with a repelling spell. Two men in black lift the older witch off her feet and slam her into the ceiling.